running global ppc campaigns at scale by mihai popescu

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Lessons from the online travel industry

Running Global PPC Campaigns At Scale

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

March 2015 – Present, Online Marketing Manager Europe & Americas at HotelsCombined

2012 to 2014 building the English speaking markets PPC accounts from scratch as Head of SEM English Markets at trivago

SMX Biggest Geek Europe in 2014

From Bucharest, Romania living in Dusseldorf, Germany

Short bio

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

The ascent to the top of search pages

“Climbing mountains Outside is climbing mountains Inside“

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Which Mountain? Google is our Everest

4

Google 95%

Yahoo 4%

Others (Bing, Baidu) 1%

Global Mobile/Tablet Search Engine

Google 69%

Bing 14%

Baidu 8%

Yahoo 8%

Others 1%

Global Desktop Search Share

Nov 2015 – January 2016, www.netmarketshare.com/

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

but not everywhere!

5

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

-‐35% Spend compared Google) +15% Average Bid But similar CPC + 10% Average Position Up to 60% Better CTR 10% more Bookings At +15% Booking Value

Bing Ads can offer some interesting sights

In 2015 we tested similar midsized UK Bing & UK Google accounts

0.00

0.20

0.40

0.60

0.80

1.00

1.20

1.40

1.60

Spend Average Bid CPC Average Posi9on

CTR Bookings Booking Value

Normalizing to Google

Google Bing

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Bing strategy meeting while cruising Sydney Harbor

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

PPC In Asia

8

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Planning for the climb, chose the right route and tools.

“Climbing mountains Outside is climbing mountains Inside“.

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Related: Alistair Dent “The Future of Feeds: Understanding Structured Data” a cross post from Think with Google blog

Everything starts from structured data

The website’s “product” feed with main attributes

Segmenting the products based on offer and demand

Estimating Inbound cost, Conversion Rates and Lead Values

Setting up an update strategy based on industry/vertical

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Everything starts from structured data

Pages/Products Main Attribute

Parent page

Product Type

Product importance User demand

Competitive metrics

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Cheap 3 Star Hotel in Sydney Cheap 3 Star Hotel in <Place>

Not keywords, but definitions

Scale up fast

Cover long tail queries

As granular as we want

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

•  Bundle by occurrence across all destination

•  Aggregate based on major topics / themes

•  Prioritize the themes based on user value (next slide)

How to group keyword definitions

Accommodation

Cheap Accommodation

Budget Accommodation

Search Accommodation

Local Accommodation

Hotels

Hotel Price Comparison

Cheap Hotels

Hotel Deals

Hotel Rooms

Central Hotel

Break

City Break

Spa Break

Weekend Break

Holidays

Last minute Holidays

Find Holidays

Last Minute Holidays

Central Hotel in <Place>

Top Central <Place> Hotels

Cheap Central Hotel in <Place>

Book Central Hotel in <Place>

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Prioritizing the themes based on value and attributes

Subtype > Urgency > Location > Power Atributes > Action > Definition > Common Atributes >

Lead Theme

HotelSpa 28 HotelLastMinute 21 HotelCenter 19 HotelCheap 17 HotelBook 9 HotelRooms 5 HotelCity 3 Hotel (0) HotelApartment 27 HotelLate 20 HotelCentral 18 HotelBudget 16 HotelCompare 8 HotelBreak 4 HotelBest 2 HotelBoutique 26 HotelBargain 15 HotelFind 7 HotelTop 1 Hotel5Star 25 HotelDeal 14 HotelSearch 6 Hotel4Star 24 HotelParking 13 HotelLuxury 23 HotelOffer 12 Hotel3Star 22 HotelDiscount 11

HotelPrices 10

Theme Group Priority Cross negative Keyword

Travel 0 1 travel Vacation 0 2 vacation Holidays 0 3 holiday Break 0 4 break Stay 0 5 stay Accommodation 0 6 accommodation GuestHouse 0 7 guest house Hostel 0 8 hostel Hotel 0 9 hotel Motel 0 10 motel BandB 0 11 b&b Resorts 0 12 resort

Lead Themes x Subthemes

(Hotel has 28 subthemes)

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Landing pages: linking the demand with our products

For London accommodation +500,000 landing pages in theory

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

We use parameters and Ad templates to have accurate and rich ads. 2-‐4 templates per subtheme to create +10,000 of ads

Generating Ads is also complex

Headline:

V1: <no.hotels> <Place> Hotels from €<min.price>

V2: <no.hotels> <Place> Hotels €<min.price>

V3: <Place> Hotels from €<min.price>

V4: Hotel <Place>

Description line 1:

V1: <no.hotels> Hotels in <Place> Save Up to <max.discount>%.

V2: <no.hotels> <Place> Hotels Save Up to <max.discount>%.

V3: <no.hotels> Hotels in <Place> Up to <max.discount>% Off.

V4: <no.hotels> <Place> Hotels Up to <max.discount>% Off.

V5: <no.hotels> Hotels Save Up to <max.discount>%.

Description Line 2:

V1: Compare +200 Booking Sites at Once

V2: Book Now! Lowest Prices Guaranteed.

Display URL:

V1: HotelsCombined.ie/Hotel-‐<Place>

V2: HotelsCombined.ie/Save-‐on-‐Hotels

Depending on the name length of the city and its parameters values

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

We Mix and Match everything Process

Rich and granular output

Thousands of campaigns Millions of Keywords Tens of Thousands of

Ad groups More Thousands Text

Ads

Basic Input

Places feed Keywords Definitions Themes Ads templates

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

•  Places types •  Themes categories •  Keywords categories •  Audience segments (can

also be done later in the set up)

How? A Simplified version: Campaigns A Themes B Themes C Themes

Head Places X X X

Mid Places X X

Tail Places X

Adgroups A Keywords B Keywords C Keywords

Exact Match X X X

BMM X X

Broad Match X

Mix and Match everything Logic

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Mix and Match everything Input market_code theme Theme index Filter Sorting Attributes

IE Accommodation 1.62 no &radius=10km&date=sundayfortnight&Rooms=1&adults_1=2&showSoldOut=false IE AccommodationBest 1.00 no &sort=ConsumerRating-‐desc&showSoldOut=false IE AccommodationBook 1.18 no &radius=10km&date=weekend&Rooms=1&adults_1=2&showSoldOut=false

Place Name Number of Hotels CountryFileName Type Cluster Internal Category Demand Category Min Price Rome 7871 Italy City City A Head 12 Paris 4445 France City City A Head 16 Barcelona 4172 Spain City City A Head 12 London 3828 United_Kingdom City City A Head 22

PlaceFileName Country Place Name Cluster Nr Hotels Min Price Sequence No Theme Name Theme Id URL Name

Barcelona Spain Barcelona City 4172 12 1 Accommodation 1001 Accommodation_1 Barcelona Spain Barcelona City 4172 12 2 Accommodation 1001 Accommodation_1 Barcelona Spain Barcelona City 4172 12 1 AccommodationBest 1002 AccommodationBest_1 Barcelona Spain Barcelona City 4172 12 2 AccommodationBest 1002 AccommodationBest_1 Barcelona Spain Barcelona City 4172 12 1 AccommodationBook 1003 AccommodationBook_1 Barcelona Spain Barcelona City 4172 12 2 AccommodationBook 1003 AccommodationBook_1

PlaceFileName Country Place Name Cluster Average CPC Theme Keyword Criterion Type Barcelona Spain Barcelona City $ 0.97 Accommodation <Place> accommodation Exact Barcelona Spain Barcelona City $ 0.97 Accommodation +accommodation +<Place> Broad Barcelona Spain Barcelona City $ 0.97 AccommodationBest +accommodation +best +<Place> Broad Barcelona Spain Barcelona City $ 0.97 AccommodationBest accommodation best <Place> Exact Barcelona Spain Barcelona City $ 0.97 AccommodationBest best accommodation <Place> Exact Barcelona Spain Barcelona City $ 0.97 AccommodationBest best accommodation in <Place> Exact

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Mixing 402 Head Places and 2614 Mid Places with 870 new keyword definitions generate approx. 750,000 new Keywords.

Mix and Match everything Output

Head Place Type Type Count Definitions Keywords Area 19 A 6 444 2664 B 7 414 2898 C 6 205 1230

City 223 A 77 870 66990 B 66 727 47982 C 80 225 18000

Country 5 A 5 165 825

POI 24 A 10 83 830 B 7 80 560 C 7 80 560

Region 131 A 61 546 33306 B 35 443 15505 C 35 165 5775

Grand Total 402 197125

Mid Place Type Type Count Definitions Keywords Area 65 A 17 444 7548 B 32 414 13248 C 16 205 3280

City 937 A 113 870 98310 B 214 727 155578 C 610 225 137250

Country 4 A 4 165 660

POI 1599 A 80 83 6640 B 511 80 40880 C 1008 80 80640

Region 9 A 2 546 1092 B 4 443 1772 C 3 165 495

Grand Total 2614 547393

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

What we aim for What we try to avoid

Complex, yet comprehensive Unique across all other accounts

Easy to folder into portfolios for bidding

Ready for locations modifiers

Being cross-‐negatives friendly

How we structure our campaigns/adgroups names?

Have a lot of campaigns with no traffic To split a geo in multiple non-‐strategical accounts

Too complicated to work with search queries reports and Google opportunities files

Long strings that don’t fit in the Adwords UX

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Campaign: IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐15426-‐Barcelona-‐Spain-‐EM Geo-‐Language-‐Network-‐Type-‐Demand-‐Subtype-‐Id-‐Name-‐Country-‐Match type

Adgroup(s): IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐15426-‐Barcelona-‐Spain-‐Hotel-‐EM Accounts Example on the IE targeting MCC structure: IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐EM IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐BMM IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Mid-‐City-‐EM IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Mid-‐City-‐BMM ………………………………………………….

A structure naming suggestion

IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Hotels-‐Top-‐EM IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Hotels-‐Top-‐BMM IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Generics IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Generics-‐Remarketing ………………………………………………….

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Choices: 1.  Smart Excel files supercharged with macros /

VBA scripts 2.  Build the logic in MySQL / database you use 3.  Use a tools like 4.  BUILD your own tool

A tool to rule this all?

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

One step at the time, climbing the mountain


#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

What are our regular optimization tools?

Adding keyword definitions Ad testing at scale

Landing page testing

Monitoring & benchmarking

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

We aggregate any search term reports either by place or n-‐grams . blog.innovativetravel.eu/2015/11/analysing-‐search-‐terms-‐n-‐grams/

Making decision on more data and based on occurrences:

Expanding the structure (keywords definitions)

Search term Theme Ad group Status Category Occurences Clicks cheap weekend breaks in <place> WeekendBreak IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐Country-‐1745-‐Ireland-‐Ireland-‐WeekendBreak-‐BM Keyword A 14 198 valentines weekend breaks 2016 <place> WeekendBreak IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐Country-‐1745-‐Ireland-‐Ireland-‐WeekendBreak-‐BM Keyword C 10 93 hotel breaks <place> HotelBreak IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐Country-‐1745-‐Ireland-‐Ireland-‐Hotel-‐BM Keyword A 6 123 cheap hotel deals <place> HotelDeal IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐3291-‐Dublin-‐Ireland-‐HotelsDeals-‐BM Keyword A 6 48 cheap hotel <place> city centre HotelCentre IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐8345-‐Liverpool-‐United_Kingdom-‐Hotel-‐BM Keyword A 6 14 last minute hotel deals <place> HotelLastMinute IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐3291-‐Dublin-‐Ireland-‐HotelsDeals-‐BM Keyword A 6 52 groupon hotel deals <place> HotelLastMinute IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐3291-‐Dublin-‐Ireland-‐HotelsDeals-‐BM Negative A 6 52 cheap b&b in <place> city BandBCheap IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐126468-‐Limerick-‐Ireland-‐BandBCheap-‐BM Alternative A 5 9 cheap hotels in <place> city HotelCheap IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐8345-‐Liverpool-‐United_Kingdom-‐Hotel-‐BM Alternative A 5 23 hotels in <place> co donegal Hotels IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐1759-‐Letterkenny-‐Ireland-‐Hotel-‐BM Alternative A 5 68 b&b <place> town BandB IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐16468-‐Roscommon-‐Ireland-‐BandB-‐BM Alternative A 5 10 <place> hotels city centre HotelCityCenter IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐8345-‐Liverpool-‐United_Kingdom-‐Hotel-‐BM Keyword A 4 25 hotels in <place> city with swimming pool HotelPool IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐48243-‐Galway-‐Ireland-‐HotelsPools-‐BM Keyword B 4 30 b&b <place> city BandB IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐3291-‐Dublin-‐Ireland-‐BandB-‐BM Keyword A 4 21 hotels in <place> city center HotelCityCenter IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐City-‐3291-‐Dublin-‐Ireland-‐HotelsCenter-‐BM Keyword A 4 38 special offers weekend breaks <place> WeekendBreak IE-‐EN-‐Search-‐Places-‐Head-‐Country-‐1745-‐Ireland-‐Ireland-‐WeekendBreak-‐BM Keyword B 4 6

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Ad testing (buckets)

Thousands of other iterations of this AD template (Hotels1) Thousands of other iterations of this AD template (Hotels2)

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

We always have in mind that: •  We run a valid A/B test

•  We measure the full funnel effect of the test. (usually profit per mile)

•  We calculate for the right revenue metric (installs/bookings/leads)

•  We document all the tests

•  We apply wins across other Ad templates

•  http://www.peakace.de (photo)

Ad testing 2

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Same principle as Ad testing but applied to URL. (Same Ad duplicated with 2 different destination URLs)

We test layouts, filters, sort orders, dates and many more.

Landing page testing

50% 50%

Which page would you use to book a hotel?

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

We are all watchdogs with the goal of keep ROAS under control. Major KPIs we follow:

§  Impression Clicks and share

§ CTR, Avg. Position, QS

§ Cost and Revenue § CPC & Cost per lead § RPC & Revenue per lead § Conversion rate § Booking value per lead § Average booking value §  Lead to booking rate

Monitoring and Benchmarking

Achieved ROAS

Cost Revenue

Target ROAS

Cost affecting factors Rev affecting factors

Clicks / Visitors

Avg CPC CTR COR LTB

QS

Avg Position

Avg Bid

Avg Booking Value

Ad testing Seasonality/ TV Website tests

Revenue Share

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

What scripts do for us: §  Update campaign settings §  Pulling aggregated metrics to

google docs / reports §  Creating negatives list across all

accounts §  Updating certain bid modifiers §  Hit our targets while we sleep

Last tip: Use scripts to your advantage

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

What to do when you are on top?


#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

Few consideration on bidding suppliers: •  Understanding the bidding algorithm is critical

•  24/7 support, but not beaurocracy

•  Own the data, encode it so that is easily transferable and universally readable (value track parameters are a must)

•  The right mix between controlled individual bids, portfolio management and machine learning is hard to reach

•  Best guide to chose a bidding provider: “Enterprise Paid Media Campaign Management Platforms 2015, a new Market Intelligence Report by Digital Marketing Depot

Chose the right bidding suppliers

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

•  Whitelisting for Betas: 2 lines structured snippet) •  Adalyzer: to analyze what elements work in Ads) •  Getting Benchmarks from Google: Clicks Gap, CPC

& CTR vs benchmark leader, spend and query coverage

•  Getting Data from Google: Topkapi, DSA ready to upload csv files

•  We are ready for under the radar changes •  Adwords + Analytics = Next level Remarketing

with Custom lists

Partner up with Google

#SMX #13B3 @Mirinel

SEE YOU AT THE NEXT #SMX

THANK YOU!